The invention relates to a personal care apparatus with a housing and with a frame which is connected to the housing and has two longitudinal walls and two transverse walls, at least one apparatus part being provided for personal care in the region of the frame, and at least one friction reducing part being provided which is designed for rolling on a body part of a person and mounted rotatably for this purpose.
A personal care apparatus as described above in the first paragraph is disclosed in patent document U.S. Pat. No. 2,880,503 A and in the patent document AU 213 581 corresponding thereto. This personal care apparatus is a shaver. In the known shaver, two friction reducing parts are provided which are formed by two rotatably mounted cylindrically designed bodies of revolution which are arranged in the region of the free ends of the longitudinal walls of the frame and are rotatably mounted in the transverse walls of the frame there, which transverse walls are designed such that they are longer than the longitudinal walls. In this case, the bodies of revolution run substantially parallel to the longitudinal direction of cutting blades provided inside the frame of the shaver. When this shaver is used, the shaver is usually moved transverse to the longitudinal direction of the cutting blades over a body part or over the skin of a person in order to cut off hairs. A problem in the known shaver is that the bodies of revolution provided as the friction reducing means are situated in the usual direction of operational movement of the shaver ahead of the cutting blades and during operation press down the hairs to be cut against the skin, which in the case of longer hairs may have the result that these longer hairs pressed down by the bodies of revolution cannot be raised quickly enough and therefore cannot be cut off by the cutting blades that subsequently come into action, the result of this being shaving of unsatisfactory quality. Furthermore, the bodies of revolution have an unfavorable influence on the ability of the shaver to be maneuvered easily over sections of skin of a person because of their length. A further unfavorable state of affairs arises in the known shaver because the provision of the bodies of revolution requires the frame of the shaver to be designed such that it is relatively large as far as its width is concerned, i.e. the shaver has a large width in its frame region, something which is disadvantageous particularly when the aim is to carry out shaving in the region of body zones that are difficult to reach, for example, in the armpit region or in the bikini region.
The invention has for its object to eliminate the state of affairs described above, which is unfavorable for a personal care apparatus, and to create an improved personal care apparatus.
In order to achieve the above object, inventive features are provided in a personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention such that a personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention can be defined as follows:
A personal care apparatus with a housing and with a frame which is connected to the housing and has two longitudinal walls and two transverse walls, and with at least one apparatus part for personal care provided in the region of the frame, and with at least one friction reducing part provided for rolling on a body part of a person and rotatably mounted for this purpose, the friction reducing part being formed by a disc which is provided in the region of a transverse wall and is arranged so as to extend at least substantially parallel to the transverse wall.
The features in accordance with the invention, render it possible to implement a personal care apparatus with friction reducing parts in which the provision of the friction reducing parts leads virtually to no enlargement of the personal care apparatus in the region of its frame by few and simple means and, in addition, also in a structurally simple way. Furthermore, the measures in accordance with the invention ensure that the personal care apparatus can be maneuvered easily relative to the skin of a person, because owing to its disc-shaped design, a disc provided as friction reducing part can easily follow changes in direction as the personal care apparatus is moved over the skin of a person. Furthermore, the advantage is obtained in a personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention that, no negative influence is exerted on the personal care process that can be carried out with the aid of the personal care apparatus thanks to the fact that a disc is provided as the friction reducing part.
In a personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention, it has proved to be particularly advantageous when one cutout each is provided in at least one transverse wall, but preferably in both transverse walls, and a disc acting as a friction reducing part is arranged in each cutout. Particularly advantageous conditions are ensured with such a design.
A personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention is designed in a particularly advantageous way as a foil shaver. However, it may be pointed out explicitly that a personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention may also be formed by a shaver with rotatably driven blades, or by what is termed a depilation apparatus with depilation discs that can be driven into rotation, or with depilation cylinders that can be driven into rotation. A personal care apparatus in accordance with the invention may also be designed as a massage device or as a skin treatment apparatus with a vacuum nozzle. Such personal care apparatuses, which may also be denoted body treatment apparatuses, may be provided not only for private home use, but also as professional, preferably medical apparatuses for use in hospitals or physicians"" consulting rooms or massage institutes, for example as massaging devices or as laser treatment devices and the like.
The above and further aspects of the invention will become apparent from the embodiment described below and will be explained with reference to this embodiment.